Someday, thanks to WB, I’ll have more wine that’s 15+ years old (not counting champagne). Also thanks to WB, it sounds like I’ll be able to get a potential deal on a Durand. This is a great example of being the problem and the solution 
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Just to pile on…not Tom, but the efficacy of a Durand. I shied away from the expense initially but if you do open 15+ year old bottles often its really worth the money. It won’t save every single cork but you’ll get 95% of them out without much fuss using a Durand. Essential wine geek gear.
Just, read the directions…
2026
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Nice! I will hold off on the Durand – I think I can get by with my ah-so and waiter’s friend until then.
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Just be sure you contact @TomHill for instructions 
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I don’t want to minimize the value of the Durand. It has opened a lot of bottles that really saved some very expensive wines. My regular wine group has long had one very special tasting a year where we bring more expensive wines. Several years ago, one person brought a bottle of 1959 Latour that he had bought at auction. He was having a lot of problems getting the cork out. Fortunately, I had brought my Durand, which got the cork out pretty easily (soon after that most of the attendees that night bought a Durand).
Over and over again, my Durand has paid for itself. Our group has a lot of seniors (including me) who bought a lot of great wine years ago when it was more reasonably priced. So, we have a lot of bottles that are pretty old - still hard to believe that the 1982 Bordeauxs that my generation bought on futures in 1983 are now over 40 years old. The Durand came in handly most recently with a 2002 Hudelot-Noellat Romanee St. Vivant (over 20 years old).
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My personal “when to use the Durand” line is 20 years (based on the vintage date) and I agree with the other testimonials. Essential for anyone for whom mature wines are a regular part of life.
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I use the 15 year rule. When I don’t follow the rule sometimes I get punished and have to reach into the bag of shame to use the Durand that I should have used from the jump. I’m thinking of making it a 14 year rule
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That happened to me once as well, but the wine was over 20. I absent-mindedly overlooked the age until I had my waiter’s already screwed in at which point I thought “Ah, cork looks great, should be fine” only to end up with a two-piece cork. Won’t make that mistake again.
I have not (knock wood) had that issue with 15-19 yo wines, but perhaps I should stop pressing my luck.
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I’ve had very few issues with 15-20 year wines I’ve cellared since release as compared with ones I’ve bought more recently.
If you only buy wines with Diam and screw caps you won’t have this issue.
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I don’t think there is a ‘corks melt at this year’ point. I’ve 30+ year old corks that caused me to sweat removing them. I’ve had ten year old cork break before I knew they felt soft. Fifteen is a nice rule of thumb where you can expect to start having the most issues given decent quality cork most often used in better wines. It’s a ‘to be safe’ cut off more than it is an expectation of failure.
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Totally. I’m sure well more than half of my 20+ yo wines would have done just fine with a waiter’s. They did before I got my Durand. But since I don’t know which is which in advance, and my goal is to never break a cork (rather than to never use the Durand except when absolutely needed), I use the Durand on all 20+ bottles, with a motion pending to shorten that to 15.
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the 10-15 year mark is interesting, many corks hold up perfectly well (rivers-marie comes to mind), while other crumble easily (Neal comes first to mind). Quality of the cork seems to be rather crucial to this question. I typically reach for the Durand for these wines regardless.
What Mark said.
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Seeing as 20 years ago will always be the 80’s, 15 years ago is anything in the 90’s?
That actually aligns pretty well with my Durand usage.
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You seem not to have updated your internal chronometer. 20-30 years ol starts at 2003 and ends at 1993. 15-20 years ago starts at 2008 and ends at 2003… Assuming you go by vintage date and not bottling date, of course.
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At least it’s confirmed again that a lot of us made the same mistake 
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I actually knew how to use it properly, hadn’t used it in a while, and then recently tried to use it by inserting the prongs through the storage slots. Took me a moment to realize what I was doing wrong.